The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

Biblical and Secular Chronology 73
are dated in relation to the year of the birth of Christ, is a rather
late construction. As is well established, the system was not
introduced until the sixth century C.E. by the Roman monk and
scholar Dionysius Exiguus. Another 500 years would pass,
however, before this new era had been generally accepted as a
dating system in the Catholic world.
Since the Bible was written long before the time of Dionysius
Exiguus, it does not, of course, give any dates according to our
Christian era. Thus, although the Watch Tower Society dates the
baptism of Jesus to 29 C.E., the 20th year of Artaxerxes I to 455
B.C.E., the fall of Babylon to 539 B.C.E., and the desolation of
Jerusalem to 607 B.C.E., none of these dates are found in the
Bible. The Bible gives relative datings only. What does that imply?
Consider this relevant example: In 2 Kings 25:2 the desolation
of Jerusalem is dated to the “eleventh year of King Zedekiah,” the
last king of Judah. Verse 8 additionally tells us that this occurred in
the “nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.”
But when was that? How far from our own time was it? How
many years before the Christian era did it happen? The fact is that
the Bible gives no information whatsoever that, of itself, links up these datings
with our Christian era.
Similarly, the books of Kings and Chronicles tell about the kings
who ruled in Israel and Judah from Saul, the first king, on to
Zedekiah, the last one. We are told who succeeded whom, and for
how many years each of them ruled. By summing up the lengths of
reign from Saul to Zedekiah we can measure the approximate
space of time (there are many uncertain points) between these two
kings. In this way we find that the period of the Hebrew
monarchies covered roughly 500 years. But still we have found no
answer to the question: At what point on the stream of time did this period
start and at what point did it end?
If the Bible had gone on to give a continuous and unbroken
series of regnal years from Zedekiah all the way down to the
beginning of the Christian era, the question would have been
answered. But Zedekiah was the last of the Jewish line of kings and
his reign ended centuries before Christ’s coming. Nor does the
Bible give any other information that directly identifies for us the
length of the period from Zedekiah’s “eleventh year” (when
Jerusalem was desolated) to the beginning of the Christian era.
Thus we have a period of roughly 500 years, the period of the
Hebrew monarchies, but we are not told how far from our time
this period was and how it can be fixed to our Christian era.